Before proceeding further it will perhaps be as well to give some account of the country hunted by the E.C.H. at that time. It was bounded on the south by the River Thames and on the north by the chain of woods from Taplow to Stoke, and by the Great Western Railway from Slough to Langley. It was and is still split into two parts by the Slough Road, across which hares scarcely ever run. On the west side of the country lay the villages of Eton Wick, Dorney and Burnham. This was the country previously hunted over by the Oppidan Hunt, and below the railway at Salt Hill hares used to be very scarce. In the Salt Hill country, however, and up towards Stoke and Burnham, they were much more plentiful. On the east of the Slough Road lay the villages of Datchet, Wyrardisbury (Wraysbury), Horton and Remenham. Most of the country is plough, and what grass there is, lies chiefly on the Dorney side of the country. Near the village of Datchet Ditton Park is situated with its house surrounded by a moat across which more than one E.C.H. hare has swum.
During the ten years after the amalgamation the kennels were at the Black Pots end of the Playing Fields, and Ward, the groundsman who tenanted the cottage and whose backyard took the place of kennels, acted as kennel huntsman. There is no information about this man Ward save that the hounds were kennelled at his cottage until 1876, when Rowland Hunt transferred them to better kennels up town. Here is a letter from Rev. W. Vickers, the brother of one of the early whips:
“It was my elder brother V. W. Vickers (who died in 1899) who was second whip in 1873, with W. A. (Billy) Harford as first whip and Hon. C. Harbord as master.
“The pack were kennelled at Ward’s Lodge, at the extreme east end of the Playing Fields, Ward acting as K.H.
“In 1874 Harford was master, with L. Heywood Jones and Hon. E. W. Parker as whips. My brother was responsible in 1873 for the account of sport reported in the Chronicle, and was occasionally very riled by the editor, who, like Miss Lucy Grimes, of the ‘Swillingford Patriot’ in Sponge’s Sporting Tour, used to correct his effusions by substituting ‘puss’ for ‘hare,’ and so on! He hunted the Trinity Beagles at Cambridge for two seasons, succeeding that fine sportsman G. H. Longman.
“Of the School tutors of my day, C. Wolley-Dod, the tallest and thinnest of Masters, was a keen beagler, also my tutor G. R. Dupuis—both of them in long frock coats and top hats. A. Cockshott too was a good friend to, though not a follower of, the hunt; on more than one occasion securing us a bill-day. One of these, I remember, was to Mr. Hall-Say’s place, Oakley Court. I don’t remember much of the day’s sport, but have a lively recollection of the lunch—a spread which made more than one of us feel, when we found our afternoon hare, that there were occasions when the saying ‘Fox hunting on foot is but labour in vain,’ applied also to hare hunting!
“The pack in my day was like the old-fashioned ‘trencher-fed’ hunts—the members bringing up in beagle term a hound if they had one, the contribution of a hound taking the place of the one pound subscription. It was wonderful (or so we keen ones thought) the sport such a scratch pack showed.
“One day is impressed on my memory (in Fenwick’s mastership, I think), when we ‘burst up’ three hares! The meet, I think, was Dorney Gate. I forget how two were killed, but the third swam the river near Athens, waited for us on the further bank, and was killed on Windsor racecourse.
“Another little incident. Meeting at the kennels we ran a hare into Datchet Vicarage garden and were gratified to see the Vicar come out of his house, hatless, to join (as we thought) in the chase. But no! his ill-directed energy was against the chase, which he forcibly reminded us was a trespass!
“The ‘hunt servants’ wore no sort of uniforms—merely change coat, knickers and stockings, with House-colour cap and ‘muffler.’ A little latitude was allowed them as regards lock-up. Just as well! For I remember one day a hare took us nearly to West Drayton!